The prior art is documented with examples of vehicle seat assemblies in which an upright seat back is selectively engaged to a high positioned striker bar. Examples of this are depicted in the seat arrangement of Denning, U.S. Pat. No. 6,769,741, the vehicle seat lock of Inoue et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,410,217 and Reubeuze, U.S. Pat. No. 7,032,973.
Also noted is the disclosure of Ishii et al., US 2011/0187171 in which a vehicle seat reclining device is configured to be attached to a vehicle body and to cooperate with a locking device affixed to a tiltable backrest of a vehicle seat. A rail is affixed to the vehicle body and extends linearly along a central axial line substantially tangent to an arched path of the locking device corresponding to the tilt of the backrest. A slider is slidably supported upon the rail and in turn mounts a striker bar configured to engage the locking device. A latch mechanism is configured to selectively permit or prevent sliding of the slider along a central axial line relative to the rail.